as in supernova
astronomy
a star that suddenly increases greatly in brightness and then within a few months or years becomes less bright again
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Recent Examples of nova
Even though novas are exceptionally bright, supernovas are brighter—reaching billions of times brighter than the sun at their peak.
—
Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 July 2025
Recorded live at the Lincoln Center, the band plays a bossa-nova take on the song while Gaga sings solo, wearing one of Cher’s own wigs.
—Kristen S. Hé, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2025
To get a separate measure of how unusual this is, the researchers placed 8 million novas around the center of the galaxy, with the distribution being random but biased to match the galaxy's brightness under the assumption that novas will be more frequent in areas with more stars.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Sep. 2024
Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 3 July 2025
Recorded live at the Lincoln Center, the band plays a bossa-nova take on the song while Gaga sings solo, wearing one of Cher’s own wigs.
—Kristen S. Hé, Vulture, 19 Mar. 2025
To get a separate measure of how unusual this is, the researchers placed 8 million novas around the center of the galaxy, with the distribution being random but biased to match the galaxy's brightness under the assumption that novas will be more frequent in areas with more stars.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Sep. 2024
Recent Examples of Synonyms for nova
Noun
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When this final collapse happens, shockwaves ripple out to the star's outer layers, which are blown away in a supernova explosion, taking with them the vast majority of the star's mass.—
Robert Lea,
Space.com,
4 Feb. 2026
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Bad Bunny has worked with soccer supernova Lionel Messi.—
Steven Louis Goldstein,
New York Times,
4 Feb. 2026
Noun
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As Earth, the pulsar, and the intervening interstellar gas move relative to one another, bright and dim patches form across radio frequencies and evolve over time.—
Sharmila Kuthunur,
Space.com,
16 Jan. 2026
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The two planets, roughly four times the size of Earth, were discovered to be orbiting around a millisecond pulsar star named PSR B1257+12, which is 2,300 light-years away.—
Lorenzino Estrada,
AZCentral.com,
9 Jan. 2026
Noun
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The team spotted the distant quasar, an actively feeding supermassive black hole, using observations from the Subaru Telescope.—
Georgina Jedikovska,
Interesting Engineering,
23 Jan. 2026
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Imagine a distant light source, like a quasar, that sends light traveling for billions of light-years.—
Paul Sutter,
Space.com,
20 Dec. 2025
Noun
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Of course, prices aren't the only variable that negotiations hinge on.—
Darius Tahir,
NPR,
10 Feb. 2026
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Progress one variable at a time—either speed or workout length.—
Stephanie Anderson Witmer,
Health,
6 Feb. 2026
Noun
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With it, Venezuela’s transformation to a petroleum supergiant had begun — for better or worse.—
David Goldman,
CNN Money,
5 Jan. 2026
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All three of its contingent stars are huge, hot, blue supergiant stars at vastly different distances from the solar system: Alnitak: 1,260 light-years.—
Jamie Carter,
Forbes.com,
1 Jan. 2026
Noun
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Learning about these highly energized neutrinos could lead to discoveries about where in the universe they might have been created, such as black holes and neutron star collisions — the latter of which are the most powerful classes of explosions in the cosmos.—
Adam Harrington,
CBS News,
9 Feb. 2026
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The fact that these events are responsible for the creation of some of our most precious and important elements, as well as bright cosmic phenomena like GRBs and kilonovas, means there has been a heavy bias toward studying the aftereffects of neutron star mergers.—
Robert Lea,
Space.com,
4 Feb. 2026
Cite this Entry
“Nova.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/nova. Accessed 14 Feb. 2026.
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